JOY ALONG THE WAY: MEMORIES STILL ON MY MIND

I think I'll start a list of Things I've Seen That I Can't Make Anyone Else Believe I've Seen. Topping the list just might be the poppy-red salamanders. More than once, did I see them. Long ago. It would be on a warm rainy spring day, most likely in May, which I was hunting in the woods for mushrooms or bluebells. And there, right where I almost stepped, would be this salamander, only I didn't know its name then. They are almost translucent and if I'd stooped closer I believe I could have seen all the inside working parts. The first time I saw one, I took leave of that place quickly. A red lizard! Surely such a thing must be of the devil. No one at home did much to allay my fears, either. Grandma, not far removed from the superstitions of the Blue Ridge, said in a low end ominous voice, "Have nothing to do with them. They can be tossed into the fire and they'll put the fire out."

I saw several more after that but I didn't stay around long enough to build a fire and test Grandma's theory. After I learned they were harmless little creatures related to the amphibian world, I never saw another one and I could never meet anyone else, who'd ever seen one, believe that I'd once seen a bright red lizard, and that it had winked at me and lifted a foot in greeting. Oh, well, maybe that last was a little embroidering of the facts, but if someone isn't going to believe you anyway, well ....

And once, I saw a chicken on a goat's back. The goat was just standing there in the pasture, chewing, his goatee waving in the breeze and atop his back was a Plymouth Rock hen, sitting smugly, as if she'd paid the going rate for such a box seat to see the world and was entitled.

There was the time eight wingspread dragonflies lined up on my fishing pole, all facing the same direction. When the fishing cork began to bobble, they took off in close formation like miniature Blue Angels. I didn't catch a fish but I surely did catch a sight that is hard to make anyone believe.

And the horsehair snakes! Oh, well, I won't even try to make anyone believe I've seen them, or at least what it was we called horsehair snakes.

A person ought to keep his eyes open for things like this. Just this morning there was a white stick-like thing poking out from amongst the dense forsythia bushes. I didn't go see, and now I'm afraid I missed a unicorn!

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.